


All Quiet on the Eastern Front

by BleedingCoffee



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: AU Flip, Altered FMA timeline, Gen, HUGHES LIVES, RoyAi-AU, Royai - Freeform, WW1, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 22:37:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2790233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingCoffee/pseuds/BleedingCoffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mustang and Hawkeye are shown that Truth has many faces and is ever changing, yet one truth within themselves is constant. RoyAi . AU story with an archeologist adventurer, WW1 combat and a living Maes Hughes. COMPLETE!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Truth Shall Set You Free

**Author's Note:**

> Author Note: The novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" was about World War 1, which began in 1914. Being the hundred year anniversary of the beginning of the war, I wanted to do something as commemoration. Not a celebration of war, but as a reminder of our history, and those who lost their lives fighting for what they wanted to protect.
> 
> I started this on Tumblr and it wouldn't let me rest until it was written. It's also been completed before publishing so no worrying about me neglecting another fanfic.
> 
> Also a huge thanks to Wordslinger for betaing for me.
> 
> Summary: Mustang and Hawkeye are shown that Truth has many faces and is ever changing, yet one truth within themselves is constant. RoyAi AU. WW1.
> 
> Disclaimer. I do no own FMA.

_All Quiet on the Eastern Front_

Chapter 1

**Truth Shall Set You Free**

* * *

" _Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it "- George Santayana_

* * *

_April 1913_

_xxxxx_

 

"Colonel!" A voice sang out across the sandy desert, echoing off the stone ruins and into the small military expedition camp site.

Colonel Riza Hawkeye ignored the playful holler coming from the ruins and she continued her report in hopes of having the opportunity to file it sometime soon. However she was at the mercy of the man currently trying to serenade her into coming down into the underground room he was working in. She looked at the smirk of Major Maes Hughes who had been dreamily reading a letter from his wife. "What?"

"He likes you." Maes batted his eyelashes at her and lowered his voice to mimic the hobby archaeologist/alchemist/adventurer Roy Mustang who spared no shame or amount of charm in pursuit of the Colonel. Maes was proud of his mock Roy voice as well as his mockery of Roy as he continued, "Oh Colonel, I have something to show you down in this secluded crypt. Please allow me, irresponsible but sexy Roy, to lure you into the hole in the ground so I can undermine your authority and hopefully your underwear..."

Riza glared at him. His mock Roy voice was awful, even if the context wasn't terribly inaccurate. "Stop."

Maes pouted and showed her a picture of his family. "The sooner he finds  _something,_  the sooner we go home. I miss my family and we're not going home until you agree to give  _him_  a family. So please, Colonel? Just this once..."

She heard Mustang's voice again, this time singing "My Queen, where art thou?"

Maes leaned over the creaky old field desk and whispered. "Go get yourself a husband."

Hawkeye flicked him between the eyes with her finger. "Get to work."

Hughes sat back in his folding chair and grinned. "I bet you can make an honest man out of him. Crack the whip, make him get his paperwork done. Make him turn over the artifacts he stole. Make him travel with us instead of that damned plane he flies everywhere like a lunatic. The man needs driving and flying lessons, he's like a natural disaster behind the wheel."

Riza narrowed her eyes at him and her voice lost all hints of humor as she asked, "What artifacts?"

Hughes heard Mustang's voice again calling for his beloved Colonel like a lonely hyena. "Oh, that box of people bits from the last site. What were they...oh the cremains of some dead Father and his seven sons? Falman's report is right here. He was cataloging the artifacts this morning, again, and discovered the urn and boxes had been replaced with a Chianti bottle filled with sand and seven matchboxes."

Riza stood up and slammed her fist on the table. Damn Mustang! He was exactly why she hated working with civilians- especially rich ones. He was brilliant and handsome and had his Daddy's money and Aunt's blackmail to open any door he wanted. He was a good guy, he was just annoying and needed to learn to play by the rules. Rule #1 was this was a military expedition and he was a civilian independent contractor. From Day 1 (or Day 17 when he actually showed up) Mustang flashed that melt-your-clothes-off smile at her and expected to run everything his way.

"Go get him." Hughes smiled and flashed the picture of his adorable daughter at her again. "Your kids are going to be  _so_  cute! Not as cute as mine, but cute."

Riza spun on her heels, annoyed that her second in command was clearly not on her side. From the beginning Hughes and Mustang hit it off, which she suspected was Mustang's way of accumulating allies and undermining her authority. He learned his lesson well from his daddy who built Mustang Motors from nothing by using his pretty face and silver tongue. Bill Mustang took a bankrupt machine factory and turn it into the corporation that now held a monopoly over anything that was a mode of transport that didn't eat hay. Even the government was surprised to find out he had them by the balls when the President discovered Mustang held all the military contracts and patents to every motorized invention of worth in the last two decades. So here she was, babysitting his spoiled son who could have been doing something amazing with his life instead of gallivanting all over the world looking for artifacts that related to his alchemy obsession.

"Colonel Hawkeye!"

There it was again; Roy calling her like he had any right to make her go to him. She was going to put her fist in his pretty little face when she got down into that dark chamber with him. What irritated her the most, by far, was that he was possibly the most intelligent individual she had ever met in her life. He earned every degree and doctorate he held, he could fix his own plane when he needed to and surprised her with his diplomacy and language skills at every turn. Even here in the desert, he managed to get help from some of the locals who preferred their isolation due to the persecution they often faced. She just wished he had some respect for the government's authority and would help his country instead of just selfishly looking to entertain himself with an obsolete science.

"Colonel!"

Yet here she was, ready to go climb down the ladder as he called for her like she was a dog. After everything she had done and worked so hard for in her military career, she was answering to a civilian. Maybe she was really disappointed in  _herself_  for falling for him, for letting herself be lead along by his dreams of finding this magic philosopher's stone in the desert and letting him fly her around in his plane so she could see the most incredible sights she had ever seen in her life. Listen to his incredible voice whisper such heart stopping words in her ear as she lay on his surprisingly fit body at night. She hated him for making her compromise her ethics, but loved him for showing her that she wasn't just the emotionless drone she had to be to make full Colonel in a male dominated military. So here she was, looking down at his face as he climbed up out of the darkness and squinted at the light above.

"I've got it, Riza!" Roy said with unbridled enthusiasm. "I found it! The Gate of Truth."

She squatted down as his head popped out of the hole in the ground and the shoddy handmade ladder creaked under him. And just like that her anger subsided, because of that pure and perfect smile on his face. Anger that she never realized was a driving force in her until she met him. Anger at her father, anger at society and anger at herself, that had been what helped her push past every hurdle to be where she was today. And in six months Roy Mustang found away to traverse the complicated and treacherous maze of of her complex persona and shine a light on her inner truth. Damned alchemists, always looking for truth. Despite her anger that she had built up on the walk over, it all slipped from her grasp as his eyes and smile told her that he wanted to share this with her. Not because she was the commander here, not because of some obligation he had to the military funding his adventure, but because he had found something he had been searching for and he wanted to share it with  _her_. Still, she couldn't let him get away with  _everything_. This damned man could drive her to the brink of ecstasy or insanity depending on his mood. "Really? Is it anywhere near that box of artifacts you took from the last dig site?"

Roy gave her an apologetic grin. "About that...I'm going to have to get creative with those reports..."

She groaned. "What did you do?"

"I sort of cooked them up into a philosopher's stone this morning." He said quickly and watched her anger start to brew so he rapidly descended the ladder and hollered up, "Come down here and I'll show you!"

"You cooked them?" She leaned over the hole, put her head down into the darkness to see if she could see him down in the chamber. "Mustang! What the hell is wrong with you? Those were priceless artifacts, they survived this desert and grave robbers but somehow they happen upon you and you destroy them?"

"Come down here and I'll show you." He called up to her and worked his way through the narrow corridor, over the rubble and rotted lumber and into the gate chamber where he had everything arranged on the floor in a semi-organized fashion. He had been working down there all morning and he scattered everything around the archaeological find of the century like it was his own personal office. He waited on her arrival and went ahead and lit a few torches to shed some more light on the transmutation circle etched into the wall.

Riza was back to wanting to punch him. He destroyed their find. Roy doing something so myopic in his pursuit of the bigger prize was not in the least surprising, but doing this to her after he  _knew_ she had reported the find to her superior made her hurt inside. Maybe she was wrong about him, maybe she set herself up to be humiliated and hurt by this man. If he destroyed the relics without a second thought, how much did he really care about her? He wasn't stupid, he knew that her career could be damaged by a failure of this proportion. This wasn't an operation of war, but it was a expedition by the military to enhance it's capabilities when they went to war. Mustang sold them on that promise, he also sold her on a promise that he loved her. As she looked at him, his handsome face lit up with the excitement of his find and she tried to focus on him. Not the mess on the floor, him. The unruly dark hair, his half unbuttoned muslin shirt, the way his pants seemed just a bit too snug around all the right places and his polo boots that kept out the desert sands. Oh, and that delicious smile on his boyish face that begged her to not notice the irreplaceable treasures scattered all over the floor.

Roy could see her face clearly now and he walked over to greet her with a kiss. He knew she was pissed however she needed plausible deniability if things didn't work out. He had to protect her and in doing so, he had to withhold rather important information from her. He felt her resistance ebb, her muscles relaxed a bit as his lips grazed over her chapped ones, pursed in frustration at him. He let out a shallow breath as he prepared to explain himself. "Just hear me out."

"You cooked them?" She pushed away from him and walked over to the mess of everything he had casually strewn across the floor like they were this mornings newspaper.  _Everything_  they had found in the last six months: Books, fragile parchment, the tiny wooden boxes that used to house the ashes of the 'sins', the urn that was the container for the individual they only knew as 'Father' and some scrolls written in a dead language. "Roy..."

"Riza..." He let his hand run down the length of her uniformed arm as she pulled away from him. The wool gabardine jacket was still buttoned fully despite the heat of the desert above. How she could wear that thing in the heat was beyond his comprehension, but she refused to breach protocol. As commander she was the one by which all standards were set and she would not allow a mere uniform to force her to stray from regulations. He loved that about her.

She turned to him and placed her finger on his lips to stop his loquacious tongue from saving him from this disaster he created. "No, Roy, right now you listen to me. You tell me you cooked our prize archaeological find, you have everything else we've collected down here thrown on the floor like it's your college dorm room and you have enough torches lit to deprave us of oxygen in less than five minutes! What...the...hell...were you thinking!"

Roy kissed her finger and received a glare in return. "I know oxygen like the back of my hand! I studied combustion in order to improve all the combustion engines my father's company is producing. I  _know_  oxygen and what is consumed by fire and how much time we have before two humans and seven torches suffocate us."

"Really." She put her hands on her hips. "How long?"

Roy clicked open his pocket watch and glanced at it. "Well before it was seventeen minutes but you're talking a lot and taking up time...so maybe fifteen now."

"How about if I leave?" She said and watched his face take on a look of panic. He shoved his pocket watch back into his pants and wrapped his arm around her.

"No, I swear Riza. I've found it." Roy walked her over to the wall and squeezed her. "This is it,  _the_  Gate of Truth."

"It's a carving in a rock." She sighed. "Roy, this isn't a joke! The military is expecting results!"

He let go of her and began to pick up the papers on the ground. "Ok, here's the concise version. What we had in those boxes, Father and his sins, was like a set of canopic jars and a cremated mummy all in one portable package. They're not meant to be worshiped like some pots of organs, they're ingredients!"

"Ingredients for what?" She asked and he turned and gave her a wink.

"A human."

"So you cooked them?" She covered her eyes with her hand and sighed. "Oh my God, I'm in love with a cannibal."

Roy shook his head and brought the stack of papers to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "No, you're in love with an alchemist."

"Yes, much worse." She took the papers and he wrapped his arms around her again, placing his head on her shoulder as he pointed to lines of ancient text on the deteriorating parchment.

"This is the ingredient list for a human being. Just basic elements that make up our bodies. This here, is what alchemists are forgetting about when they tried human transmutation. The missing ingredient. Or as it's roughly translated here , 'a soul'." Roy nuzzled her and she didn't seem to appreciate the gesture. Yeah, she was still pissed about him cooking the dead guy.

"These are the documents we found in the ruins of Xerxes, which you spilled tea on!" She pulled away from him and shoved the cracking and chipped papers in his face. "Roughly translated as 'damaged beyond comprehension' by someone who should value this historical piece and not destroy it! Roy, what the hell is wrong with you?"

"It might look like tea, but really it's urine."

"Oh my God." She stared at him. "You're really insane aren't you? Or you're here to destroy the finds so the government can't compete with your Father's company!"

"That's really not insane, more of a crafty and brilliant plan." Roy gave her an apologetic grin as she looked like she was about to consider strangling him. "Riza, I'm not working for my father. I needed to determine what kind of disappearing ink they used before I tried to reveal it or I would destroy the message. So I had to test on the original paper to determine what they used."

"So why did you pee on over 75% of it?"

"I really needed to pee." He said and his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "Look, you women think we have some amazing targeting system on these crotch cannons, but I think every toilet in existence proves otherwise. I was aiming for the bottom corner and missed."

She stared at him as that adorable blush touched his cheeks.  _Oh my God, he's talking about pissing on a priceless piece of ancient literature and I can't believe how in love I am with him at this moment. This man is a complete idiot and I love him. "_ Why didn't you just pee in a cup so you could control the flow?"

He ran his hands through his hair and grimaced. "See, this is why you're the Colonel and I'm just the scientist."

"You really just thought, "I need urine' and whipped it out didn't you?" She asked and he shrugged.

"I really needed to pee and..." He he looked over at his coffee cup that probably was a few days old. "I had an incident in college when that whole 'pee in a cup' thing came back to haunt me."

"Roy." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "We're about out of time, just gather up all this and we'll come back down when we can circulate more oxygen down here. "

"Oh, I fibbed about that. We have like 45 minutes." He said and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "You were really pissed and I knew if I didn't give you a sense of urgency you would have marched me out of here and arrested me."

"Why waste the effort? This place can be your perfect tomb." She let him take her hand and pull her over to his table in the corner.

"I made some forgeries of the documents anyway so you wouldn't get in trouble for what I had to do in the name of science." Roy grinned at her and saw that look of uncertainty on her face. Like she wasn't sure if she should be upset, impressed or appalled.

"You never intended to turn over any of the originals to me did you?" She was close enough to him she could see even the slightest facial muscle twitch on his face. She would know if he was lying, but she knew he was just going to tell her the truth.

"The originals should be studied like they were intended. Alchemy is about seeking truth, not hiding it away from the people because the government has a bigger plan." Her saw her eyes soften, this had been the topic of conversation on many cold nights in the desert as they lay in his cot talking until dawn. "Riza, this is someone's work they hid because they feared it would fall into the wrong hands. I can't ignore that, even if I believe in my country. I can't blindly accept that the government works for the people like you do, I know they don't. I know they only allow the people to know what they want because that's the best way to suffocate questions and independent thought. These papers around us are someone's life work, many people's life work. We can't hide that away in some archive."

"Roy, the government wants this so they can compete with your father. How is destroying the stranglehold of unregulated capitalism evil?" She asked and he looked down at her, close enough that he only needed to whisper for her to hear.

"Without the monopoly on transportation, the government would control everything. Just try taking back a country from that. The only way to prevent it is to stay ahead of it and educate people. This,  _this_  knowledge we unearthed, will create renewed interest in a field of study that is accessible to everyone. It's not like out modern science that required sophisticated equipment and takes it out of the hands of all but the privileged. Imagine the power of basic science in the hands of the common man!"

"Did you ever consider that maybe it was all hidden because it was for the greater good? That no  _one_  man should have so much power?" She asked and touched his cheek. Ever the man dedicated to his ideals, he could be blind to the most obvious. "That there is reason power is controlled, that laws are established and a balance of power needed. Competition begets advancements; monopolies maintain status quo."

"Governments never work for the people." He repeated. "Politics always get in the way because those in power want to manipulate it to benefit them. Everyone needs access to this knowledge, not just those people the government says have clearance to see it."

Riza put the papers down and hung her head. "Roy, we're going to die down here if you don't stop debating with me and start showing me what you found."

Roy nodded, "Sorry. Where were we?"

"You were peeing on someone's life work."

"Yes." He went over and picked up his notes. "The Xerxes document was more of a myth, some fairy tale they wrote to hide the notes on the backside that were in disappearing ink."

"Urine."

"Yes. So I was able to use a specific light spectrum with my light-box to read the text. It's translated here. What it really is about is the creation of a philosopher's stone. The ancients just held it in such high regard they called it a 'soul' in code. Eventually when it was re-translated and re-coded, they just ended up writing it as 'human' instead of 'soul'. "

"What if your fabled stone is really made up of people?" Riza asked and pointed to the boxes. "What if those were really remains you put in the mixing bowl. How can you talk about preserving knowledge if you're going to just be so callous with the ashes of a human being?"

Roy took out the stone from his pocket that he had created this morning in his tent. " The containers were ingredients, they're  _sins_  not sons like Hughes keeps calling them. The minerals and elements that make up a human being are not enough to create a life. A soul animates the body. Sins, make it human...fallible and imperfect. Our bodies are machines, made up of pure elements, but to make them a human being you add a soul. A soul that is comprised of failings, sins, and also a cognitive life-force. That is Father and his seven deadly sins over there, now combined with the basic makeup of a human being...cooked and reduced into a philosopher's stone."

Riza's eyes took in the shiny red stone and thought this moment should have been more dramatic. Maybe the heavens opening up and angels singing, but instead she was looking at a man holding a red rock he made out of artifacts and she wanted to smack him. "Roy..."

"There's more." He said and walked over to the wall. "This goes in the middle of this transmutation circle on the wall. I made a casting using some wax and made this stone with that form. So according to that scroll that we got from the ruins at Xerxes, the final piece to make this all come together is this little stone. It's the energy required to make alchemy work."

She got a weird chill as she watched him place the stone in the hole in the wall and hold it there. The etching in the wall was perfect and precise and it boggled the mind to imagine someone carving that into the stone. There were no chips in it, as you would expect from someone chiseling a complex transmutation circle into solid rock. He was right, humans weren't perfect. Nothing was perfect in this world that was made or touched by man, so why was this circle  _so damned_  perfect? "Roy, there has to be a reason someone scattered all these components around this desert. What does this transmutation circle even do?"

"It opens the gate of truth." He said and looked back over at her. "Truth. Enlightenment. Knowledge. Everything mankind wanted to know, but we are only an ingredient in the grand scheme of things."

"Roy." She walked over and her gut told her something wasn't right. That gut feeling had saved her so many times and she wasn't going to ignore it.

Roy placed his hand on the etching and let his fingers roll over the cuts in the stone. His eyes took in all the ancient runes he had studied, their meaning and what they all meant together. Then he took away his hand from the stone and it didn't fall out. He moved his hand over to brace himself against the wall and stared into it, lost in the search for something he wanted with such intensity he didn't he feel Riza's hand on him until a jolt of something passed from his right hand, through his body and to his left hand. His body tingled, like he'd been electrocuted. His heart stopped beating, his lungs stopped and his eyes stared directly into the stone unable to do anything else.

Riza saw the blue crackle of light circle his hand and felt his body tremor as it passed through him and into his other hand, the etching on the stone now filling with that crisp blue light. She wrapped her arms around his waist to try and pull him away as the light flowed like mercury around the flawless grooves cut in the stone, defying physics as it circulated like a liquid on a vertical surface. She tried to pull him from the wall, but he was almost magnetically locked on to it and unresponsive. "Roy!"

The next thing they saw was a burst of light that should have blinded them both, but it was so warm and welcoming that they couldn't close their eyes. Roy felt his heart restart and took in a deep breath, suddenly aware that Riza's arms were circling his chest. In that moment, he felt a power of something he couldn't even begin to understand and it excited him and frightened him at the same time. The glow encompassed them and drew them into it's embrace...a second before the grooves of the transmutation circle came to life in the form of a hundred little black arms that desired nothing else than to tear them apart.


	2. Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: This is an AU story and even the FMA timeline has been altered and gone off course. I mean, why color between the lines if you can scribble all over the book and the table under it? :)

 

* * *

_All Quiet on the Eastern Front_

Chapter 2

**Truth is Stranger than Fiction**

* * *

" _Truth lives on in the midst of deception."_ -Friedrich Schiller

* * *

_April 1913_

_xxxxxxx_

"Colonel?"

Riza groaned and tried to focus on the almost childlike voice hailing her by rank. It sounded almost like someone was talking through a P.A. System, the voice echoed against something metallic. She felt the heat of the desert beneath her and her hand clutched some sand. Damn Mustang, he probably caused a cave in with his magic light show. How the hell was that man a celebrated engineer?

"Colonel! Did it work?"

Riza sat up and rubbed her eyes. That was a distinctly different voice. Who the hell did she have on the team that sounded like a 14 year old? Neither voice was familiar, but her head was still swimming from that reaction Mustang triggered. She felt dizzy and nauseous as she and opened her eyes, shielding them with her hand from the blinding light of the sun. "Did what work?"

"Lieutenant!"

She opened her eyes and put her hand to her head. She had a terrible headache, probably from a concussion or the unrivaled amount of yelling going on around her. That voice, it was Hughes.  _So much for taking charge of the situation in my absence, Maes._  She felt like a schoolteacher when kids came rushing back in from recess. That was going to be something she addressed in her next staff meeting; Maes was going to have to quit being so lax and start acting like a commanding officer if he was going to make it to a higher pay grade to afford all those kids he and Gracia were having.  _Focus Riza, you're rambling like Roy. Focus. Take charge._ "Hughes? Major...report! What happened?"

"Colonel? Wake up dammit!"

It was that kid again! Riza finally focused her eyes and looked at Hughes, the reflection of the afternoon sun catching in his glasses and making it impossible for her to see the amusement in his green eyes. She could feel Mustang beside her and heard him groan. "Major, what happened?"

Hughes raised an eyebrow and looked over at Ed who just slapped Roy to try and get him to wake up. Eh, he would let that slide. He nudged the young alchemist, the only one of that rank in the vicinity. Weird that Hawkeye was being so professional with him, but she had probably just been through quite an ordeal. "Major?"

She eyed Hughes's uniform and his face again as her focus returned, black dots still encroaching on her vision. "Yes, you! So help me God Hughes, I'm in no mood for your insubordination!"

"Colonel Bastard!" Ed slapped Mustang on the head again oblivious to Hawkeye's statement and enthralled with the fact he was able to smack Mustang for some sort of distorted medical reason.

"I'm right here!" Riza snapped and finally turned to the kid who was doing all the yelling. Some blond boy with a red riding hood cape and his gloved hands around Roy's throat. "And don't you dare address me as bastard! It's Colonel Hawkeye and you better get your hands off Dr. Mustang before I get my hands on you!"

Ed's jaw hung open as he looked at the always sane and calm Lieutenant Hawkeye and had nothing to say. He looked to Lt. Colonel Hughes as Mustang started to stir.

"Now you did it, Brother." Al gasped and hunkered down next to Ed in the sand. There was a reason Team Mustang feared Hawkeye and it was because she had the power to verbally skewer like an enraged mother. The reaction was always a mixture of terror and shame and right now was no different as even Hughes leaned back a little.

Riza turned to Roy as he groggily came back to reality. She would wait until later to find out why Hughes let two kids play dress up in the ruins. The young blond with the braid was rude and the one hiding in an antique suit of armor was probably going to die from the heat soon, or just bake in the knight costume. Parenting these two was not her concern at the moment, however checking on Roy's condition was. Roy groaned again and she quickly assessed his state of injury, but something was way off. He wasn't wearing that linen dress shirt she had been clinging to earlier, the one she loved to wear to bed with him when they finally settled down to sleep in his cot. He was wearing some sort of uniform. She glanced back at Hughes who was also in the same blue uniform. "What's going on?"

Roy came to and swatted away the hand around his collar. "Who is this midget?"

Ed backhanded him for the comment and just shrugged at Hughes. "Sorry, I was already in the motion of slapping him when he work up. My bad, my hand slipped. Automail is acting up."

"Roy, did it work?" Hughes asked but he could feel the uneasiness within him tell him this wasn't just shock from a transmutation. Something was genuinely wrong. Roy propped himself up on his elbow and took in the scene, his eyes narrowing at his best friend and giving him that scrutinizing calculating look he knew all too well. The same look Roy would have as he woke up on his couch after a night of drunken carousing and couldn't remember where he was or how it got there. It was that searching gaze, as his eyes scanned for context clues and his brain tried to find a rational reason behind what it was seeing.

Riza waited as Roy's eyes drifted over the Knight and his sage (who were these kids?), Hughes and finally moved to her once he determined there was no danger here. His eyes mimicking the confusion she felt and he reached out for her hand. Silently he asked if she knew what was going on and she returned the look of uncertainty.

"Are you hurt?" Roy's voice was soft and hushed. In everything he did, all his stupid antics, he never wanted harm to come to her. He just wanted her to live a little, embrace the spontaneity in which he lived his live. He wanted to share his discovery with her and he should have considered the consequences of a failed transmutation. He was so cock-sure about it's success, high on the euphoria of solving the mystery and finding the treasure, that he neglected to take basic safety precautions. He needed to keep her safe, always. She was in enough danger in her line of work and he should have never been the one to jeopardize her well-being.  _Arrogant fool! You could have killed her!_

"Not that I know of, but..." She looked at the kids and Hughes who were plain shocked as Roy took her hand. Hughes's reaction of surprise sealed it, something was horribly wrong. "I think these gentlemen owe us an explanation."

Roy cocked an eyebrow, realizing the blue uniform seemed to be present on all of them but the little cosplay boy and his robot knight.

"Explanation!" Ed screeched. "You're holding hands like you just went on your honeymoon instead of left to save the damned world! And you want an explanation? I want someone to explain to be how he made Colonel!"

Hughes had been studying their reactions and didn't like it one bit. "You're Colonel Roy Mustang, Flame Alchemist and the lovely lady who you are holding hands with is Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye ...your personal aide."

"Ha!" Roy sat up and slapped Hughes on the leg. "Good one Maes! This makes up for that fake letter I sent from Gracia saying she was leaving you. Really elaborate. Impressive too. The uniforms you had made, the creepy feeling that someone had their hands all over me is clearly you putting this on me. And even hiring a street urchin to...scream like a shrimp out of water for no reason. You missed your calling!"

"Did he just call me a shrimp out of water?!" Ed squelched and heard Al snicker behind him. "That makes no sense!"

Roy grinned at Riza. "But seriously, she's going to have you executed for the rank thing. I mean really, Hughes, that was ballsy I got to give you that. Making me the Colonel...HA!"

Hughes watched him shake sand out of his hair and then glanced at Hawkeye who looked pale. Aw shit. Something went terribly wrong.

"I'll have my Dad find you a job when she fires you." Roy chuckled and looked at the finely embroidered alchemic arrays on the gloves on his hands. "This took some brilliant scheming and planning to pull off. I'm sure he needs a guy like you. God, did you make this gloves too? You sew like my grandma! What a delicate and precise stitch, you have so many talents Hughes!"

"Roy, your parents died when you were five." Hughes watched him stiffen. "You really are a Colonel and the Flame Alchemist."

"Roy." Riza looked over at him, "What did you do?"

"Well I hope to God he destroyed the homunculus remains!" Ed screamed. "Did you!?"

"Those aren't real." Roy scoffed. "Hughes, did you adopt this kid? Where the hell have you been hiding him? A shoebox under your bed?"

"Roy, perhaps you can tell us what just happened?" Hughes handed the man a cup of coffee and sat back down. "Or maybe we can start by briefing you?"

* * *

Ed remained quiet as Hughes and Mustang discussed a history that simply did not exist and one that they knew all too well. He didn't want to open his mouth because with every question, it became more evident that this wasn't just some fog that would lift from the overtaxed brain. Mustang and Hawkeye were standing their ground, which should have been comforting, but the ground they were on was a mirage and there seemed to be no getting through to those defiant idiots. the sun was beginning to set and the were no closer to having answers about the success of the mission.

"So, let me get this straight." Roy's voice silenced Hughes as smile crept across his face, broadcasting his disbelief. "I'm an orphan who became a war hero burning people alive with my "flame alchemy". Then, because that apparently wasn't enough for my resume, I decide to take down the government. In the mists of plotting treason we discover that the government is secretly run by some powerful entity that the runt's father let out of a flask a couple hundred years ago."

"Who are you calling a runt!" Ed wished he'd pass out again so he could hit him some more.

"Oh I'm sorry." Roy said drily and made sure to add air quotes to his next statement. "Fullmetal Alchemist."

"Hey!" Al stood up and squeaked. "Dad died trying to fix his mistake! It's because of Hohenheim that we were able to destroy Father!"

"Doesn't make it any less true Al." Ed stood and put his hands in his pockets. Truth sounded horrible, but it didn't make it any less true. "We found out about the plans of the homunculus when we were trying to capture the Freezing Alchemist."

"Oh!" Roy threw up his hands. "I forgot, we have more superhero alchemists too! Should I start taking notes? I'd hate to forget to invite someone to the posse the next time I have to save the world."

"Well at least you're still an asshole." Ed snapped back. "There's a truth nobody can ignore."

"Continue, Edward." Riza said and watched the young blond jump at her command.

"Uh sure." Ed fidgeted and scratched his head. Hawkeye usually barked orders at the Colonel, not him. "His name was Issac McDougal. He found out what was going on in Central because they invited him into the good old boy's club and asked him to help make an immortal army. He found out everything, all their plans. How philosopher's stones are made...everything. Then he escaped and tried to make his way out of the city to do something about it. A national-wide transmutation circle, can you imagine that Mustang? Can you? Those moron Generals thought they were going to get immortality and they were sacrificing their souls so Father could make himself God!"

"So where is this guy?" Roy asked and looked around. "I'd love to talk with him...about getting some ice for a scotch on the rocks."

"He died fighting the homunculus!" Ed screamed. "Didn't you listen when Hughes told you that the cost of destroying these things cost lives? That we need to know if it was a successful mission or not and that you need to snap out of whatever fantasy you're in! You're the Flame Alchemist, Mustang! Not some pilot! You know about combustion to produce fire, not internal combustion engines!"

"With my sandpaper gloves?" Roy held up his hand.

"Try it." Ed said. "You're an alchemist, you understand how it all works. The laws of alchemy, the sequence of comprehension, deconstruction and reconstruction. You manipulate Oxygen, it's how you control your flames."

"It's called a carburetor." Roy said with an scowl. He was tired of playing games with this kid. "The oxygen regulator."

"I don't know how you do it, it's not like alchemists share their secrets. However, as we already discussed, you are an  _asshole_ and you take every opportunity to mock me. " Ed snapped at him. Ugh to be able to hit him just one more time. "We staged a fight in Central, an alchemy battle, so that we could distract the high command while we fought and Hughes could get into Central Command and snoop around. Unfortunately you are a competitive  _asshole_ and almost barbecued me. I'm sure you keep the newspaper clippings in your diary, just look for the 'Fullmetal Vs. Flame' headline."

"Maes, really?" Roy looked to the man who seemed lost in thought. "You let this little vulgar shit around your darling Elicia?"

"Sure do." Hughes grinned. "Want to see pictures?"

"Mustang! I'm over here!" Ed threw a chunk of firewood at him, outraged at being ignored.

"I know that you're so damned tiny it's hard to see you at times," Roy threw the stick back at him. "But I can still hear your high pitched squealing from a mile away so don't throw shit at me Fullmetal."

Maes cocked an eyebrow. Maybe the adrenaline rush of being angered was helping to push the fog out of his mind. He gave Ed a nod, indicating he wanted the young man to continue his story instead of dancing around in victory pointing out Mustang's slip up. This was a good sign, even if he could feel Riza's eyes trying to stare a hole in his head. "Continue, Ed."

"Anyhow...after the fight..." Ed purposely didn't mention the outcome of the Fullmetal vs. Flame battle, "We had to clean up the parade grounds and I asked you how you did it. How your alchemy worked."

"Actually brother, I asked him." Al said meekly.

"Whatever. The point is you told us just enough to tell us how it's done and not how to do it." Ed grumbled.

"So he burnt off his eyebrows trying." Al chirped.

Ed ground his teeth. "Exothermic reaction. Your gloves are the spark, the oxygen the fuel source. You focus on the oxygen somehow and use it to direct your flames. So, do it. Focus on the campfire. Think about the elements in the atmosphere and what you need to complete the chemical reaction. Look at your gloves, see if the array means anything to you."

"The array means nothing." Roy said and glanced at the simplified transmutation circle. "If you  _are_ an alchemist you know that it means nothing without the knowledge behind it. That the creator of an array has the information embedded in his mind, the calculations and equations already worked out in years of research. The array a lock, the mind the key...without the key the array cannot be activated."

"You  _are_  the Flame Alchemist." Ed slammed his hands into the ground and made a small earthen wall fire pit to hold the firewood in. He hoped that by seeing the crackle of energy, feeling it's power, would trigger something in Mustang's mind. "You know those secrets even if you don't know what to believe right now."

Riza was mesmerized by the dance of alchemic lightning around the kids hands. The same glow of energy that was present when Roy touched that transmutation circle. "You understand combustion Roy..."

"Like the back of my hand." Roy finished her sentence and looked at the gloves he was wearing. His eyes focused on the array, a familiar design, but he had studied it his entire life and there were only so many designs or runes to work with. Surely he had come across this before. He rubbed his thumb and middle finger together lightly, the course texture of the gloves providing enough friction that it felt like the scraping of a match on a flint. "I'll humor you, however the reason I know about oxygen in the atmosphere is because I am an engineer and an aviator. I designed my airplane engine and I push my plane to it's limits to test the engine and improve it. At a higher altitude the oxygen concentration in the atmosphere is thinner, it affects how the engine can combust fuel and it's possible to choke the engine into stalling."

"Quit  _stalling_ and snap your fingers." Ed crossed his arms. "Come on Sparky, don't tell me you're  _useless_  now even when there is no water to be found in fifty miles.

Riza watched Roy's face contort into anger, finally teased to the point where he lost his temper and patience with the kid. She didn't blame him, they had bigger concerns than humoring some child and his role play fantasies. His arm swung out, his fingers snapping as his arm extended at the pile of wood and earth in the center of camp. Then she saw it, the glow around his hand, and to her amazement a fireball exploded from his hand and condensed into a line of dancing fire that shot straight past the fire pit and hit the blond boy's red cloak, setting the end of it on fire. She looked back to Roy amazed as the boy screamed about his precious coat and his brother rushed over to snuff out the fire. What she saw on Roy's face was not disbelief, but a smirk of satisfaction.

"You missed!" Ed screamed.

"Did I?" Roy countered and felt some guilty pleasure at setting the boy's stupid red coat on fire. Then he realized that he  _had_  set it on fire, that despite his talk, it was second nature to him to just snap and narrow his focus on a target and control the combustion all the way to it's destination. He stared at his hand and the array trying to digest the fact that he just started a fire with his hand and mind.

"So," Maes stretched his legs. "Can we talk about how you disposed of Father and the sins now? Perhaps even how you got back out of the gate once it closed behind you?"

Roy sat down, suddenly overwhelmed by what he just accomplished. He looked up as Riza started talking giving him a chance to make sense of things.

Riza stood and stared down at Maes, doing her best to reinforce her authority. She wasn't about to accept that she was the lowest ranking officer here. Not yet. Not when her soul screamed in agony at all the hard work lost, all the years of focus and study, all the blood on her hands for nothing. "We discovered the relics, Father in his urn and the boxes labeled with the seven deadly sins, in the ruins near Ishval. The rest of the documents we had gathered over the course of the past six months on our expedition to find the philosopher's stone."

"Documents?" Maes asked.

"Ancient alchemy texts which Dr. Mustang used to find the recipe to make a philosopher's stone." Riza replied and watched Maes tap his finger on his pant leg.

"Really?" Al asked. "You found a document on how to make one?"

Roy answered without looking up from the array on his gloves. "It was a fairy tale, some folklore about a 'Philosopher from the East'. There was a message, written in urine, hidden on the back of the document."

Maes leaned closer to his friend, and said low enough the boy's couldn't hear. "So Roy, remember when I showed you that trick back in the academy during my espionage training? How your precious chemistry wasn't all about alchemy, but could also make disappearing ink for the intelligence community. You put your coffee down right next to my cup of piss and when you went back to your desk took the wrong cup..."

Riza watched them as Roy looked up at Maes, face etched with surprise that he knew about that memory...or was a part of it. Roy's words from earlier this day came back to her when they were discussing him peeing on her priceless finds. She was going to summarize their afternoon as quickly as possible to gain Hughes's trust, there was a lot going on here and she wanted more information. "He used the cremated remains of father and the sins to cook up a philosopher's stone."

"Just like we talked about!" Al said excitedly. "That there are more elements to making a human than just the basic minerals and elements in the body. That the reason our human transmutation attempt failed was because we didn't account for the soul!"

"You two did what!?" Roy snapped and looked at them both. The armor, the metal hand...now suddenly making sense. "You idiots!"

"Yeah yeah." Ed waved him off. "We've already done this dance Mustang, so lets skip ahead to the parts we want to hear. You made the philosopher's stone, so you could open the gate of Truth. Right?"

"How do you know this?" Roy asked.

"We theorized that the gate was a portal, that it was a door to a different dimension where Truth resides." Ed sat down. "That the transmutation to open that gate, just like you were talking about your gloves, was a lock and you needed a key. Well  _you_  were the key, and you needed the power of a philosopher's stone to turn the lock. It worked on our side, it worked here because of a stone that Dr, Marcoh had that he gave you. "

"I swear I need to start making a list of all these people. Who is Marcoh?" Roy asked.

"Crystal alchemist, but forget about that for now." Ed crept closer.

"Why did you want to open the gate?" Riza finally asked. "Why, when you clearly have so many problems here with the government, did you want to stop what you were doing and open a gate to the unknown?"

"To return Father to where he was from, so that he could be locked away when his energy was used up by the stone. Because we didn't want even a shred of him surviving, he'd find a way to regenerate himself even if it took centuries. The only way to destroy him was to lock him back up from where he came from." Al said. "Since my Dad let him out to begin, he knew the most about Father. He knew him when he was a conniving entity in a flask and learned more about him than the thing wanted him to. So he knew he was from beyond the gate, that it confessed that much because it needed his trust and help to become powerful here. "

"So, you volunteered." Maes said. "To open the gate and destroy him within his own realm and lock the door behind you. Hawkeye went to protect you, in the event that the original transmutation incapacitated you. So somehow, in that realm, you were seduced by that wonderful life you were living."

"However you're an alchemist." Ed said proudly. "And you will  _always_  search for Truth. That's what we counted on, we knew there was a risk that something would happen to you. So we believed in your to need to find the truth, that you would search for it even in hell, limbo or heaven; That it's ingrained into your being Mustang."

"Actually," Maes smirked. "I was counting on your love for each other being unstoppable and it looks like I was right. Your kids are going to be so cute!"

"So, even though I was an alternate version of myself, I was destined to find Riza and look for the Truth." Roy asked.

"Yes." Al said. "It worked. You found the knowledge, you used it to create a stone with father and the sins he tried to separate from himself that made him remotely human. Then you used his energy to open the gate back up, leaving him behind."

"It's really just the theory of conservation of energy." Ed said and nudged his brother. "Al figured that one out. That we weren't safe, ever, unless we sent Father back to where he came from. That nothing is created or destroyed, just changes form."

Roy looked over at Riza, everything was making way too much sense. Except for their memories, except that his own mind told him that this insane life was not his. But facts were stacking against him and he was having to stomach some awful truths. "So my family is dead and I'm now stripped of my freedom and bound to the military?"

"We're still alive Roy." She brushed his hair with her fingers. "You're still a brilliant man, you have the secrets locked in your head somewhere of how to send us home."

Roy hung his head and looked up at Riza with the apologetic eyes. "I've taken everything from you too. Everything you worked so hard for."

"You  _are_  home." Hughes said softly. "And you still have each other."

"No Maes. Nothing you are going to say is going to convince me that this is where I belong." Mustang stood up and dusted off his stupid pants. "I would never join the military. I hate authority! I hate these pants! What are they? They have flaps?"

Riza took a deep breath and said bitterly. "I'm clearly in no position to climb the ladder again, not when I'm his secretary."

Maes was at a loss. He had no idea what to make of them still clinging to this deception. He thought that revealing the plan, the theories behind it and the facts that it would help them re-acclimate to reality however they were both resisting the intrusion of the light of truth into their fabricated world. Though he didn't want to push too hard right now, it was nice to see them fighting for their own happiness for once. Roy was like he used to be in the academy, a playful idealist not dragged down by the cruelty of war yet. Riza as a Colonel? He didn't have a hard time seeing it really, if she didn't have Roy to watch over she would have invested herself in her career and gone a long way. "You were gone half an hour. Not enough time to life a full life."

"So you think these memories were created?" Riza asked and heard a gasp from the the armored brother of the rude blond child. Apparently he took offense to that.

"Look, it's getting dark and I'm tired of talking." Roy said with an authoritative tone he didn't think he had in him. "So go to bed and we'll talk about this more in the morning. Colonel Hawkeye? Do you have an issue coming to bed with me now that we're both in uniform?"

Riza shook her head. The last thing she wanted to do was let him walk off by himself, afraid he might vanish. "Not at all."

Maes pointed to the tent where they had stayed in the ruins last night. He needed some time to talk with Ed anyhow, he needed to know if this was going to wear off. There had been glimmers of hope, each time Roy insulted Ed, so he wanted to believe they would both return to normal. However, one only need to look at Ed and Al to remember that alchemy had it's price. What if the cost of opening the gate and cheating was that Roy and his biggest supporter lost their way and no longer wanted to fix the country? What if he lost his vision for the future he wanted for Amestris?

"Hey Mustang!" Ed stood up and watched the man turn and look at him waiting for him to speak without firing off an insult. That was weird. "What the hell is a shrimp out of water and why do they make noise?"

"Is that a riddle?" Roy looped his arm around Riza, needing to feel her close to him.

"You said it when we woke you up." Ed replied.

"I meant fish out of water. They hop around like you were doing, flapping and spitting water everywhere." Roy watched the young alchemist grin. "What?"

"I hate to seem sentimental, but you always insult my height. Shrimp, shorty, midget. If you don't know me, why would you do that?" Ed grinned, excited to best Mustang at something, even if it was because he had a concussion or memory lapse from the transmutation.

"Chin up kid. You're young, you'll grow eventually. Puberty just sucks." Roy walked with Riza to the tent and ducked inside.

Ed cocked his head and watched Mustang and Hawkeye's shadows move inside the canvas tent as he lit a lamp. "What the hell was that?"

Maes shrugged and studied them as they walked off together. "Is it a side effect of the transmutation?"

Ed just poked at the fire with a stick and glanced at his brother, silently staring into the flames. He could tell Al was having a panic attack, thanks to what Hawkeye said about fabricated memories, but he couldn't just walk over there and dismiss his fears. Al was going to have to see the theory debunked, he wasn't going to be comforted by the words of his older brother who might just have the power to do something this complicated. If Mustang and Hawkeye could disappear and return convinced they were different people, than what Al believed about his own memories was shaken to his very core. They both were shaken, Ed just didn't realize how much he expected Mustang to be the one they always looked to to be unyielding in the face of catastrophe. How much they looked to him to be a fixed point of guidance and took for granted that he was human just like them. That his successes against the enemy were as much luck as prowess and perhaps he had finally taken on something he couldn't overcome. "It's mentally stressful and draining to perform something of that magnitude, but that doesn't explain Hawkeye."

"She said...her memories might have been created." Al said, brought his knees to his chest and hugged his legs.

"Al, you can't go back to believing what Barry said to you, he's a serial killer!" Ed exclaimed.

Maes reached over and patted the armored knee of the 13 year old trapped in the suit. "Al, you're overlooking something really important. Truth."

"Truth is hard to forget Mr. Hughes." Al said.

"No, truth at it's very core." Hughes looked off into the distance at the tent. "Roy, lost his parents young and probably wondered what would have happened if they didn't die. This could be a repressed memory or fantasy for him."

Al sighed. "Yeah, I guess I can understand that."

Hughes pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and grinned. "You damned alchemists tend to forget that the human mind isn't an equation, it's not going to follow through with your understood chemical reactions every time. It's unpredictable and there is a lot going on in that brain of yours. Trust me, I have some psychological training from being in the intelligence business. You can trick a mind into thinking things and trauma can make suppressed memories surface. "

Ed rested his chin on his hand. "Yeah, and I can see why Hawkeye would dream about being the Colonel and not him."

Al shook his head, "Both of them believe the same thing though. Isn't that weird?"

"Ed, what exactly is ''The Gate"?"

"A vast empty space, with one creepy as hell little dude." Ed frowned. "However I think he was successful. He said he made the philosopher's stone with the homunculus and Father, so if he burned them up opening the gate than they should be trapped there."

Maes cocked his head. "But you've been there...you've seen Al. You've both existed in the same limbo together."

"Yeah." Ed said and stared into the fire. "I guess we just wait then."

* * *

Inside the tent papers were strewn everywhere, notes scratched out on the sand and some books stacked on crates. Tell tale signs that Roy had been here. "All the comforts of home without the sanity that comes with it."

"Roy, what happened?" Riza asked quietly.

"I don't have a damned clue." He said and sat down on the cot, eagerly undoing the buttons on the uniform, feeling oppressed by just the fabric alone. "Look, in case this is just a brief moment we have together and we wake up separated in the morning...I need you to know something."

"Me first." She ran her hand over his face and gave him a half-hearted smile. "I love you Roy, but I wasn't going to give up my career for you. I dedicated my life to the military, if only to have some control over my life, and I wasn't about to give it up to go home with you. I like structure and discipline. I need it."

He threw off the jacket and pulled her down to sit on his lap, the cot creaked beneath them and he kissed her. "I know you weren't. It's why I love you, because you're so strong and refuse to compromise. You're dedicated and even if I don't agree with your belief in service to your country above all else...I love you for it. Which is why I had to find Truth and the philosopher's stone. Because a war, a world war, was on the horizon and I was terrified of you being involved in it. In losing you."

"Someone has to fight and defend our freedoms." She put her forehead on his. "I have someone to protect, even if it cost me my life."

"Riza, I love my family. I rarely ever fought with my father on anything...except that when the war came I was enlisting. That someone had to help create a worthwhile airborne fighting force for our country and I was the one who wanted to make that a reality. He said I was needed to help build and create weapons on the home front but I wasn't going to let you go out there without me. Knowing you would be in the trenches...I wanted to be there for you. With you. Fight for you."

"It's not what you believe in." She said. It was silly to be arguing about this now, that world was lost to them and it was a moot point. She rubbed his chest and felt something under his shirt, so she unbuttoned his collar and the burron below it. His breath hitched a little, in response to her actions, and she smiled as she pulled out a pair of dog tags hanging on his neck. Her thumb rolled over his name, stamped in the metal and glanced up at him.

"I believe in you and there is a time when you need to support someone even if it conflicts with your own core beliefs." He kissed her and ignored the necklace for teh moment. There were more important things to get off his chest. "I wanted you to meet my family. Hear Grandma talk about how Mustang men are as bad as the damned wild horses with our name, pinch my cheeks and tell you embarrassing stories as we ate Mom's Xingese cooking. Have you best my father in chess. Maybe...test out how durable my bed was."

"Is this equivalent exchange?" She asked. "We gave up our family and careers in exchange for opening that gate?"

"With the philosopher's stone as our toll...I don't know. We should have physically been harmed like those kids." He kissed her neck and whispered. "I'm an idiot, I should have never involved you in that transmutation. I was so sure of my findings that I never considered the consequences of something going wrong. Stupid. It's why I don't let anyone else test out my engines, I don't want someone else to pay for my mistakes. I'm so sorry, Riza. I was just swept up in the moment and I wanted nothing more than to share it with you."

"Let's go to bed." She brushed his unruly hair from his face and smiled. "I can't believe you're a Colonel."

"Ironic huh?" He fell back on the cot with her in his arms. "I spent so much time running away from responsibility and searching for some damned fairy tale, and I find it...only to find out I'm not just an officer but responsible for the fate of the world."

"I spent a lifetime trying to take control of everything so no one could have control over me like my father did. Unwilling to let it go for the promise of a life with you." She sighed. "Now apparently I dedicated my life to you and gave up on advancement. Ironic."

He chuckled. "Truth has a sense of humor."

She didn't bother to take off her uniform, she felt some comfort in the stiff wool gaberdine and needed more reassurance tonight than most nights. So she put her head down on his chest and welcomed the dreams that came.


	3. Truer Words Never Spoken

_All Quiet on the Eastern Front_

Chapter 3

**Truer Words Never Spoken**

* * *

_"This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war."_ -Erich Maria Remarque "All Quiet on the Western Front"

 

* * *

_It was official. war had been declared and cheers went up around the officer's club as if it was a football game and not a long, miserable glimpse of hell looming on the horizon. These, however, were young men, men who hadn't seen action before and she had to pity them. They boasted that war would be over in months and dreamed of returning home Generals with a hero's welcome. Riza had listened to enough and didn't want to crush the momentum of morale before the war could really begin. It was her responsibility as a Colonel to train and use these men to the best of her ability, not inform them of their naivety._

" _Leaving so soon Colonel?" a familiar voice called from the crowd. "I thought we might have a drink?"_

_Riza's heart fluttered as she heard his voice and turned to look at him. Roy still looked young, even if it had been a few years since they parted ways. She never lied to him and told him she didn't love him so she couldn't lie and tell him she'd be happy with his life. Either as the wife of a business executive when he took over his father's company or the spouse of the adventurer, she didn't fit into Roy Mustang's life anywhere. Not because he wouldn't make accommodations for her, but because she couldn't let go of her position in the military. Her confidence and self awareness was somehow locked into the uniform and job she invested her life in and when he offered half of his life to her it wasn't enough. Her stability was shaken and she retreated back to what she understood instead of taking his hand and the uncertainty that went with it. Somehow he understood, bless his brilliant mind for understanding her reason for breaking their hearts, but he also told her there would never be anyone else who could have his heart. So here he was, looking incredible in a fresh new uniform of a first lieutenant. "Lieutenant Mustang, I thought you'd be commissioned a Captain."_

_Roy saluted her and grinned. "Colonel, they don't let Captains have any fun. This was the highest I could go and not get grounded. I'm here to fly, you know, not do paperwork."_

_She returned his salute and her heart started to ache for him. Not because he was gorgeous in his uniform, but because that smile on his face told her that he was so happy to see her again. She took a step forward and said low enough that the other officers couldn't hear, "If you want a drink you better come back to my quarters. I have the good stuff."_

_Roy felt his breath hitch and had to suck it in order to avoid making a scene as she brushed past him on her way out of the crowed room. He put his hat back on and ducked out the door. Nobody would notice if they did some celebrating privately, would they?_

* * *

_Riza sloshed her way through the muddy trenches, keeping her head down just enough in the shallow sections to not get shot at. She nodded to the boys who were miserable but trying to enjoy the break in the fighting before they went back at it again. Trench warfare, a foolish way to wage war, slaughtering your men over the possession of a stretch of No Man's Land that was of little consequence to anything. However it was how this war was being waged, as the General continually reminded her, and if she wanted to see a promotion by war's end she would follow orders and just accept the causalities. Wasn't that what they always said?_

_She ducked into the miserable little earthen room that was her headquarters and lit a lamp as soon as she let the canvas flap fall down behind her. She sat down on her cot and pulled out an envelope from her uniform pocket, letting two well worn photos fall out. Here in this horrible stretch of hell on the front lines, she was realizing that there was no comfort left in her job. That she couldn't protect anyone, she still had no control over anything and she wasn't sure there was a future in this anymore. So she looked at the pictures and let a smile touch her lips, because there was a man out there who she couldn't wait to tell her revelation to and she had seen him flying overheard just two days earlier. Roy was in the vicinity and when she saw him next, she was going to tell him. Tell him, this was her final war and she wanted to follow him wherever he chose to go._

_He sent her pictures and letters with as much regularity as the war would allow. Her men looked at nude girls and family pictures while she sat here staring at a grinning Lieutenant posing next to his plane. He sent her an official photo, one with his dress uniform and hair slicked back, but she loved this one so much more. It was her Roy, a smirk and a mess of unkempt hair, leaning against a plane his family built. He even painted some alchemy array on the plane, which made her smile. It was something related to fire alchemy, painted on a flammable cloth covering that was the biplane's skin. The planes were frighteningly fragile, powered by a temperamental engine, and to top it all off they added guns to the damned things. Roy had drawn her a diagram of the the timing chain that was responsible for the synchronization of the machine gun fire with the gaps in the propeller rotation, excited by the design genius who allowed him to engage in dogfights without tearing apart the vital piece of his plane. It was what would be responsible for making airplanes a viable option for combat and not just reconnaissance, bringing forth a new era of cavalry and perhaps a real purpose for her quixotic hero. His letters told her about the rotary engines in his planes, how they were causing control issues for the new pilots and how the engine was inefficient for the task. He was already working on it's replacement, and boasted today's engine would be obsolete by war's end._

_Roy was making aviation history. She couldn't believe his horrible driving skills came in handy for something. Roy flew, and drove, like a blind lunatic. Hughes always told her when they were on that expedition in the desert that it was better to let him fly since there was less he could hit in the sky versus a realm of collisions waiting to happen on the ground. So it payed off, his flying skills had baffled the enemy and irritated the hell out of his Captain who expected the squadron to fly in formation. He was the country's hero, a handsome and amazing champion of the skies who was hamming it up for the press and military propaganda department. The Flying Ace, a Knight of the Skies, and she knew she wasn't the only girl who went to sleep looking at his picture at night. She was however the only one he gave his pictures to and made sure he penned something to her daily even if he could mail it. She brushed her thumb over his worn picture, wishing he could be here tonight in her arms hearing about how she could trust him enough to relinquish some control over her life. That she could embark on a new adventure with him, that she never wanted him to go anywhere she couldn't follow again._

_She jumped as the sounds of a dogfight in the distance interrupted her thoughts. She put away his picture, kept over her heart in the inside pocket of her uniform, as the anti-aircraft artillery kicked to life on the enemy line. She saw his plane the other day and knew he was up to something, she suspected he was going for the enemy munitions storage after scouting it out. He would have found her name on the General's maps and bullshitted his way into helping her. If they could weaken the reinforcements to the enemy, destroy their ammunition, then the next push they made could very well seize the trench. It would be the first victory in a while, the stalemate that had the entire line locked into position for months could finally be broken. It wouldn't hurt that it would be -her- men to break it either, even if she had help from her guardian angel above, it would be a solid victory for her. With the rate that officers were dying, the possibility existed for a field promotion. Even though she knew how unlikely she was for the choice, the promotion would go a long way to improving morale at home and on the front. The army, and the country, needed heroes. As General Olivier Armstrong hinted the last time they met, they'd love to paint her as their Joan of Arc in the trenches. She didn't want that kind of attention, but it was pointless to protest._

_Riza could feel the knots forming in her stomach as she left her room. Roy was a good pilot, he knew the engine's limitations and knew not to deprave it of oxygen, but he always flew right at the threshold of stalling it and flying home victorious. He knew the enemy aircraft had issues at a certain altitude and took advantage, so she could expect him to drop out of the clouds like a falling star, sometimes using the fall to restart the engine if he climbed too high. He scared her flying as much as he scared her flying -into- range of enemy artillery. Today was no different. She heard the sound of his engine roaring through the clouds and looked up, the Mustang Motors engine had a very distinct sound and she could always tune into it. He had made adjustments on his in the field, so Roy's plane sounded different than the rest of the stock engines off the production line._

_She held her breath as there was the sound of gunfire, she didn't want the sound of her own breathing to get in the way of her listening. Her heart made up for it, pounding in her chest like a drum and echoing across her body but she focused on him none-the-less. The air exploded with the shells from ground to air artillery. It was usually ineffective at the altitude he flew at, it was just a way to get them to waste ammunition. However the engine sounded different now and when the clouds parted she let out a cry and ran to the edge of the trench. His plane was on fire! The engine was smoking, belching out black smoke as some of the cylinders started to miss, throwing off the timing of the engine. He must have been hit. What was he doing flying so low?_

_The guns on the plane came to life, a spark of light from the machine gun as the sound meshed with the cacophony of battle. Black smoke billowed from the plane now as more canvas caught on fire. The plane was not maintaining a straight course, he must have been struggling to keep it in the air. Everything he said about the gyroscopic rotation of the rotary engine suddenly came to mind, how the engine's rotation fought against the plane's course of flight. How the engines were the reason half the new recruits died in a horrible crash on the end of the airstrip and now that damned engine was misfiring, probably wobbling the already damaged and under powered plane. Everyone on the line knew what his plane looked like and how he flew, the collective gasp and shouts didn't make it any easier for her to watch. He was coming in fast, why so fast?_

_He should have pulled up, he should have been returning to their lines but instead the plane maintained a course towards the enemy lines. The guns kicked to life again and suddenly he pulled up and banked and her heart resumed beating, but then the plane abruptly nosed down and she heard the sounds of the engine's high pitched whine as it sang out it's death cry. The scream caught in her throat as a huge fireball ignited behind the barbed wire and minefield ahead of them, then a thunderous roar of a secondary and tertiary explosion as the munitions exploded. Suddenly her voice returned and she screamed, "NOOOO!"_

"Riza! Honey wake up, you're having a nightmare."Roy felt her fingernails dig into his shirt and she shook in his arms after crying out in her sleep. Riza's nightmares were something he had grown accustomed to during their few months together. It was the price she paid for her climb to the top and the memories haunted her when she closed her eyes. He never broached the topic with her, preferring to comfort her in the night than with awkward psychological talk during the day. He felt her tears and worried, "Riza, wake up. Everything's OK."

Riza felt his shaking and startled awake, bolting upright in the cot and reaching for her sidearm.

"Riza, take it easy. It's OK."

His soothing voice in the dark made her snap back to reality. She wiped the tears from her eyes and whispered, "Roy?"

"I'm here. I didn't go anywhere." Roy reached up and caressed her jaw, rubbing her bottom lip with his thumb as her hot rapid breaths warmed his hand.

She fell onto him and hugged him so tight she heard him gasp for breath. "Please don't die."

He wrapped his arms back around her and pet her long hair and pulled it from her face as she sobbed into his neck and sniffled. "We're going to figure out everything tomorrow, OK? I'll get us home."

"I don't know if that's the best option anymore." She said and buried her head in his shoulder. It was just a dream, but it was horribly real. If they went home there was a war on the horizon and she was going to lose the one person she suddenly realized she couldn't live without. "I just dreamt you were killed in a plane crash, shot down during a World War."

"Just a dream, I'm right here." Roy placed a soft kiss on her golden hair and mused at how ironic it was that his comforting words were that it was 'just a dream'. Considering they were not exactly sure what kind of dream they woke up in this afternoon, he doubted there was comfort in anything right now. Well, except each other.

He was absolutely exhausted. He was surprised Riza managed to fall asleep so quickly, perhaps it was her own unspoken hopes that when she woke up the would be back in those ruins without those annoying kids and all this would be 'just a dream'. He stared at the roof of the tent and listened to the talk outside for a little while. Then, he finally succumbed to the exhaustion and his tired mind gave him some dreams of his own to consider.

* * *

_Roy could smell the stench of infection and lingering death well before he even made it to the field hospital. As the car crawled down the rutted farm road he tapped his foot nervously on the floor and crumpled his hat in his hands to alleviate some of the anxiety. Upon landing at the airstrip after a successful recon mission he received a message from the field hospital that Colonel Hawkeye had been_ _injured. The message was still crumpled in his hand, sweat soaked and probably unreadable, however every few miles he'd open it up and make sure the words were still on the paper._

_The car hit another pothole and threw them around causing his driver to curse and apologize. He knew there was nothing he could do about it, this road was probably never in decent condition before a war came to this countryside. The bombs, artillery and armies only worsened matters. The smell got more intense as they passed latrines and then piles of bodies waiting for burial beside the tents. Mules brayed and men screamed, as the car made it's way towards the old school that now housed a field hospital. Before his driver, Sgt. Fuery, could stop the car he had the door opened and jumped out. The communications officer said something about finding a place to park and wait for him, but Roy didn't care. All he cared about was racing into the school and finding someone who looked like they were in charge._

_Roy had to press his body tight against the wall of the entrance as soon as he walked through the double doors as orderlies carried a stretch with a groaning man missing an arm past him. Inside the sounds and smells intensified, chemicals used to debride injuries and sanitize the facility were enough to make the eyes water, throat and nostrils burn and trigger a gag reflex. Combine that with the smell of blood, excrement, urine, trench foot and unwashed bodies and there was enough to confuse and disgust his olfactory senses. However he smelled something distinct and pungent, the smell he now associated with chemically burned flesh. The war had taken an even more inhuman turn as desperate armies turned to poison gas to destroy their enemies. He made it to the front desk, able to navigate between wheelchairs, gurneys and stretchers on the floor in between waiting for hospital staff to pass by. "I need to locate a patient."_

_The nurse looked up at him and then looked past him as she noticed a stretcher-bearer sneaking away to smoke a cigarette he most likely stole. "Harper!"_

_Roy turned and looked at the man who darted past everyone with ease and out the door. The nurse muttered to herself and he crushed the note in his hand harder. "Miss, I need to locate Colonel Riza Hawkeye."_

" _Women aren't in this building. They're in the church."_

_Roy was going to say 'thank you' but the nurse turned and ran over to a man screaming in a cot. He turned and left as quick as he could, the brief glimpse of the small entry hallway of the school enough to instill panic in him. He had no idea what injuries Riza had sustained and he was lucky he even got that much information when he landed this morning. He was out of the hospital in the blink of an eye, happy to get out and breathe in the slightly less putrid air outside. He walked down the cobblestone walk and his pace quickened, he went into the middle of the street and looked for a steeple. Without caring who saw his lack of decorum, he sprinted towards it as soon as his eyes found the damaged bell tower._

_Roy was taking the steps of the church three at a time when he finally reached it and almost crashed into a nurse as he ducked into the holy building. He muttered some apology and then turned back to the woman and grabbed her arm. "Colonel Riza Hawkeye? Is she here?"_

_The girl nodded and said, "I'll take you to her."_

_Roy followed the young lady who couldn't be more than sixteen years old and she walked him down the main aisle of the church towards the altar as his eyes scanned the pews for any sign of Riza. All he saw were slumbering nurses and hospital staff, nobody that looked like a patient. There was a missing section of the roof where a bomb had clearly been dropped , but the lack of damage inside said it didn't detonate. Perhaps it was one he delivered when this town was in the hands of the enemy. Perhaps this church had been full when it happened...perhaps the damned thing was still in the basement right now. He looked at the hole in the floor and almost walking over the young lady who was showing him to Riza's location. He paid more attention to where he was going as she went towards a door where church officials would probably prepare for services. She opened the door and nodded to him to enter, so he walked inside and looked over at the rows of beds against the wall. Another nurse eyed him suspiciously and he croaked out, "Riza? Riza Hawkeye?"_

" _Lieutenant?"_

_He was by her bed instantly and he took her hand and kissed it, his eyes not straying from the bandage around her eyes. He bit his lip and choked back a cry as tears immediately started to swell in his eyes. He didn't need to be told why she was hospitalized. She was a victim of poison gas. "I'm here Riza."_

_She gave him a weak smile, unable to offer more thanks to the pain from her injured eyes. She could picture him, his voice cracking told her his expressive eyes were already filling with tears as he looked at her with a pained expression. He wouldn't ask what happened, so she reported. "Mustard gas. They just shelled us with artillery and we thought we smelled something...but it dissipated. It settled into the trenches with us."_

_He waited for the prognosis and watched her sit upright, ever the soldier, and continue her report. He could tell from how she hesitated, it wasn't going to be good._

" _They've been flushing my eyes trying to purge the chemical, but there's not been much improvement. I'm more than likely...I'm going to be blind.."_

_His breath caught in his throat as he stopped a sob from escaping his lips. No. Not her. She was destined for so much! She was going to be a presence in the military after a war depleted it of officers. She didn't dedicate her life to this country to end up honorably discharged. She didn't deserve to have her vision ripped from her, he could see how she held her hand to her bandage that it had indeed been -torn- from her by the burn of a toxic chemical. Her vision of a world where the women behind her wouldn't have to fight the inequality that she had dealt with, the dismissal of her skills because she wasn't a man. All gone, with her sight and her job._

_She felt him clutch her hand and whispered. "I'll be discharged, the army doesn't need a blind officer."_

" _I'm going to get you out of here." Roy rubbed her hand. "Get you home, get you to a real surgeon. A specialist, someone who isn't a drafted veterinarian working in squalid conditions with captured medical supplies from last century."_

" _I'm not leaving my men." Riza said defiantly. "We were all in those trenches and some of them weren't as lucky as me. Some have respiratory failure and widespread burns, some already died. No, I don't leave before they do."_

" _Riza, please..."_

" _You'll just have to be my eyes, Lieutenant." Riza could hear his sporadic breathing, the choked back tears and tell-tale signs he was about to breakdown, so she gave him a glimpse of optimism. As a good commander should, even when the odds were against them. "From here on out, you'll just have to be my eyes, Roy."_

_Roy finally let his tears fall and sat on the bed beside her and pulled her into his embrace. Riza had a vision, that this war wouldn't be for nothing. That the country would rise up from this conflict and strengthen itself and learn from this calamity. She believed that the world would learn it's lesson, that this would be the war to end all wars. Countries who were allies would forge stronger bonds and dismantle the powers that created this conflict to begin with. However, now she was looking at an honorable discharge and that all vanished. Her goals, unattainable now, and she would struggle to rationalize the losses in darkness until the end of her days._

"Roy, you're squeezing me too hard."

"I'm sorry," He whispered. "Did the gas burn your skin too?"

"Roy, wake up."

His eyes shot open as he tasted blood in his mouth. He must have bitten his lip in his dream. He suddenly felt a wave of emotion rip through his entire body as the memories of a young woman hunched over in a fetal position pushed to the forefront of his mind. Her muffled screams and the smell of burned flesh, his heart ache for hurting the woman he loved and the shame of betraying her. His stomach lurched, a tumult of painful memories hitting him wave after wave as he remembered the anger at seeing her tattoo, the guilt of not preventing it and the determination to make it mean something. That power of that knowledge at his fingertips and the hope that he would make her proud. Then the first snap, the first scream of agony as those flames touched a victim on these wretched sands that could never be so saturated with blood that it would not sink into the ground. The smells of burn human and hair, the tortured sounds of humans being burned to death by the secret he so desperately wanted.

Riza hovered over him, petting his sweaty brow with her hand. "Guess it's just a night for bad dreams."

He gave her a somber smile. Maybe some of it was just a dream, but he remembered quite clearly now what horrors he couldn't dismiss as his overactive imagination. How a war had damaged them so badly that it required a constant sacrifice to atone for their sins. That he  _was_  home, but that none of them could ever really come home after what they did.

She placed a kiss on his bloody lip and smiled at him. "Just a dream."

Just a dream, or were the truths starting to emerge from the fog of deception? He tasted the irony blood in his mouth and reached down to pick up the dog tags on his chest. His fingers ran over the metal markers and he didn't feel their weight anymore. Like it was genuinely a part of him. He was, afterall, Colonel Roy Mustang even if the tags just had his name and personal identity number and not any of his titles. Colonel, Flame Alchemist, Hero of Ishval. Thankfully 'human sacrifice' wasn't one of those titles, by his own doing or the homunculus. He took in a deep breath. There was still work to be done.


	4. Truth Will Prevail

_All Quiet on the Eastern Front_

Chapter 4

**Truth Will Prevail**

* * *

" _The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it."_ \- Ayn Rand

* * *

Maes Hughes was often underestimated thanks to his slightly obnoxious persona. He reveled in the fact that his cheerful exterior, one of the few things he didn't have to lie about, was what most individuals used to discredit him. It worked out perfectly; it enabled him to hide his motives and intelligence behind something that came naturally, unlike Roy who was buried beneath a multitude of personalities in order to deceive and confuse. He worried that it was that life of lies and deception that was currently plaguing the alchemist's mind right now, preventing him from truly seeing the truth.

Roy was rarely easy to read, his steeled his emotions in the most trying times and sometimes contradicted himself with his actions. You could never read him when you wanted to, his dark eyes an unflappable abyss when you wanted him to betray himself or just blink. When he let go of the facade, when alcohol weakened it or his emotions too much to bear, he went from stoic stalwart hero to an inconsolable sobbing mess. So now that his mind was confused by this transmutation and a visit to the unknown, Hughes wasn't sure what fabrication of truth was rattling around that little round head of his. He loved his best friend like a brother, but there were times he wanted to hate him like one too.

Truth. Fucking Truth. He looked at the slumbering Ed and his little brother watching over him.  _Alchemists_. They dedicated their existence to finding truth and all too often ignored established fact in order to succeed in their quest. It's was science, pushing the boundaries of what was known to discover the unknown, but it was frustrating as all hell for those watching them. Constantly searching, always a little lost in the present because they only focused on the future.

He was thankful Ed was here because the one thing he could count on, the one thing they all banked on, was that Roy would at heart  _always be an alchemist_. The whole operation was a huge gamble, Ed and Al were apprehensive and that was enough to make him understand how absurd Mustang's theory was. The boys warned that beyond the Gate of Truth was a sadistic little entity who could see through your doubts and prey upon then. That grin, evidence that it wasn't a neutral figure but a being with it's own agenda. If Father came from the same limbo, you can just guess how bad this little fellow was. Roy would be weak from a transmutation of that magnitude, even using the philosopher's stone to amplify his alchemy, he would be mental drained and physically leached. So the arguments began, over who would perform the experimental alchemy and possibly send themselves to another dimension on a one way trip...or blink themselves out of existence. The boys were already damaged, they already knew that limbo, so why not let them go?

Maes had been so engrossed in that argument that he didn't realize Hawkeye had stepped forward to interrupt the debate. He heard her calm and confident voice, a sharp bite of authority in her words as she silenced them by saying, "I'll go with you, sir. In the event you are too weak to continue with the rest of the plan, I'll have your back until you recover."

Then he saw it, the brief flicker of an unguarded emotion on Roy's face as he looked up at his faithful Lieutenant and Maes could almost feel the years of dedication and angst between them with that one look. A look of fear as he left the realm of theoretical alchemy and was pulled back to reality. The reality where the woman he loved was beside him for  _everything_. For better or for worse. A burden and a blessing. His moves put her in jeopardy and she willingly rushed into the unknown with him.

"Don't go where I can't follow." She said sternly and Maes let a smile touch his lips at the memory. Yes, it wasn't a stretch to think of  _Colonel Hawkeye_  at all. It had the desired affect, Roy became more focused on the probability of survival. He was always too willing to sacrifice himself, welcoming death if it lightly tapped upon his door and offered to absolve him of his sins and end his suffering. Only in remembering that others were counting on him, that there was still a goal to be attained, did he renew his desire for survival.

That had been a week ago. What followed in it's wake was a week of the three alchemists scribbling out equations, pouring over books and general alchemic chaos as they sat in Roy's apartment trying to bring a permanant end to the creatures they had conspired against. The hard fought victory over Father and his children, a unifying battle in the shadows of a knowing government who had allowed this abomination to manipulate mankind, was now down to this. Two teenagers and a shattered man, crawling over his wooden floor with chalk in an attempt to close Pandora's box forever.

Had the fate of the world not been resting in the hands of two sleep deprived individuals and a soul in an antique armored suit, Maes would have enjoyed the display of intellect as they bounced theories off each other and taxed their brains to the point of exhaustion. Al was as excited as a child before a huge birthday party, not only was he involved in this forum of alchemy debate, but the principles and theories they were working on was directly linked to him getting his body back. If Mustang could successfully open the gate of Truth, then there was hope that his body would be freed from incarceration eventually. The Elrics refused to use the philosopher's stone for such an endeavor, but if they had the knowledge of how to unlock the gate then they were a step closer to their goal. He needed hope because, like his blood seal, it was slowly beginning to fade. Maes and Riza had worked in shifts, watching over the trio while they worked and slept, so they both were able to share Al's company while he continued to work while Roy and Ed rested. It was all too easy to forget he was a scared child, and they both had supported him during those solitary hours as a parent would.

Maes heard rustling by Mustang's tent and poured a fresh cup of coffee for his best friend. "Riza still sleeping?

"I'm sure her dreams will wake her up again." Roy sat down and took the coffee, "I just tried to squeeze her to death in my dreams. I've always been haunted when I closed my eyes to sleep, but nothing like this. Reliving the atrocities of the war is one thing, living the atrocities of  _another_  war is more than I can handle."

Maes could tell from his demeanor that this was his brooding best friend again. "Welcome back Roy."

"Yes." Roy's lips hovered over the cup as it shook in his hand. The visions of that war torn countryside were still so fresh in his mind. The blood puddling in the mud, a stark contrast to the sands that sucked it up with unquenchable thirst. "These false truths, they feel so real. That life I just lived in the span of an average lunch, I don't want to let go of those memories. Deception or not, they felt warm and inviting. Everything up until I went to war again. I could do without those visions."

"Colonel?" Al's voice was soft and apologetic for the intrusion. He didn't want to interrupt the two friends as Mustang coped with his experience, but he couldn't wait any longer for answers. He didn't have the luxury of taking a nap and waiting on Mustang to come to his senses.

Roy turned as the young alchemist tried to creep to the campfire, his armor creaking with every not so subtle move he made. "Hey Al."

Al sat down beside the Colonel who looked drained, a man burdened by so much it seemed to make him heavier than he was. He never noticed it before, how the Colonel wore his responsibilities as much as  _they_  wore him down. The man who walked off to take a nap a few hours ago was a different man. He was light on his feet, head held high and an aura of optimism seemed to dictate his actions. His arm was slung around the woman he loved without worry of the ramifications and he was ready to fight to get his life back. This man, the Roy Mustang they knew, wore his despair like it was a part of his wardrobe. "What happened? Do you think Truth created your memories? Do you think it fabricated it to prevent you from accomplishing what you were there to do?"

Maes smirked. Al wasn't going to ease the man into it, he wanted answers and he wanted them four hours ago. "So you think this was a fantasy? That Truth toyed with them for opening the gate?"

"What is Truth?" Roy closed his eyes. He could hear Al's squeak of fear, that this one answer would tell him whether or not  _he_  was a fabrication. He was still trying to come to terms with his experience and entering into a philosophical debate with teenager wasn't exactly what he wanted to be doing. However, he was safe and so was Riza, so the questions of a boy trapped inside a cold vessel were going to come first. " Truth is empirical. Science has taught us that. What humankind once held as Truth fifty or five hundred years ago is no longer the same. What I held as true several hours ago is no longer viable. As facts are presented and accepted, my perception of Truth has changed."

"We once believed in equivalent exchange." Al said and looked at his brother. "We thought it was the world's greatest truth."

"All this before your first cup of coffee." Maes smiled. "Maybe you are the right man to back as Fuhrer after all."

Roy cocked an eyebrow at him and finally took a drink of coffee. Truth was that Maes couldn't make coffee still and it tasted like shit. He had laid in that cot trying to come to terms with his resurfaced memories for almost an hour before giving in to the need for the beverage. He swallowed his first sip and took a deep breath as Ed's face materialized on the other side of the fire, clearly not wanting to interrupt the flow of information by screaming obscenities for a change.

"Perhaps, Truth..." Riza said as she approached the campfire, all the men looking up to her as she took a seat next to Ed. She looked into the fire, trying to collect her thoughts. "Or at least the truth we saw was the one we've been hiding from ourselves. A suppressed truth that we didn't want to admit to ourselves before we had to overcome it in order to succeed with our plan."

"Yes. That's a viable theory to work with. " Hughes nudged Roy with his boot. "Why did you go to the academy Roy? Why didn't you just pursue a career as an alchemist?"

"If Master Hawkeye taught me one thing, it was that alchemy didn't pay the bills." Roy saw Riza's eyes lift and admitted to himself that he genuinely never wanted to join the military, he just had no other options. That in his naive youth he believed that he could change things and make the world better through alchemy and prevent travesties from happening to others like they did to him. "I hated that he couldn't even provide the most basic care for you Riza, that you worked for everything while your Father sat in his study trying to discover a secret that he never intended to share with anyone. So Berthold Hawkeye may not have taught me Flame Alchemy when I was his apprentice, but he showed me that there wasn't a future in being an alchemist like him either. I wanted to be able to provide a decent life for us and to do that, I needed a job. It wasn't going to be as bartender at Christmas's or as a alchemist for hire...it was going to be in uniform because that was my only option. Instead of wasting my education and years learning on a career with little hope making a living, I looked to the academy as a way of not only providing a paycheck but also increasing my worth exponentially by taking the state alchemy exam."

"So you wanted to be an alchemist adventurer?" Riza asked with a smile. "Like Ed?"

Roy heard the young alchemists cackle and ignored him, instead grinned at her. Her memories were back as well. "Well, I wouldn't have cared about my income so much if it wasn't for the beautiful blond I wanted to treat like a queen."

Riza blushed. This was a lot of truth for one day, especially from a man who she thought she knew so well.

"Maybe you better pay attention, big brother." Al said and watched Ed freeze and his eyes grow wide. If it wasn't dark out he was sure he'd see his cheeks turn an interesting hue of pink.

"Little did I realize she had dreams of joining the military and changing the world." Roy shrugged.

"I joined the military because I had someone to protect." She looked him in the eye. "I fantasized about being a Colonel because I had to do all your work for you."

"I could have done it, but then you wouldn't have had an excuse to hover over me, berate me and spend all that overtime with me." He countered. He didn't need to tell the rest of the the group that she also wanted a father who didn't ignore her, who didn't leave her to fend for herself in a decrepit old farmhouse while he studied. So the father she fabricated was a man who did pay attention, a man who tried to control every aspect of her life so she wouldn't have to figure it all out on her own. An independent woman suffocated by a over protective, over bearing father figure who she eventually freed herself from by joining the army. She joined the army because she didn't have any other career options. Truth, it seemed, was having some fun at their expense.

"So when are you two getting married?" Hughes asked and grinned.

Roy watched Riza roll her eyes, Hughes could be counted on to be consistent. After last nights dreams and this short adventure where he was suddenly liberated from all his responsibilities, he knew that there was the possibility that they might not have forever. That life was passing them by and if he ever lost her, it wouldn't be a life he wanted to live. "As soon as possible."

* * *

"So what about your goals?" Maes asked as his best friend fussed with his hair again. He honestly didn't think he'd live to see the day that Roy Mustang got married.

"Someone once told me I should get myself a wife so I could be taken more seriously." Roy turned to Maes and resisted the urge to touch his slicked back hair again.

Maes shrugged. "Really nobody takes you seriously until you have kids, but it's baby steps with you."

"Well it should be a great speech you have prepared for the reception." Roy replied and eyed the smile on Maes's face.

"One to rival the one you gave at my wedding." Maes pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose so he could cover his eyes, he cocked his head ever so slightly so the glare from the window caught them and made it impossible for Roy to see anything but a reflection. He gave him a mischievous smirk. "Payback's a bitch."

"So are you." Roy grumbled. "It would be a pity if your note cards spontaneously combusted."

"I memorized my speech."

"Your pants look flammable."

"You better not be wearing your alchemy gloves, that's just tacky as hell." Maes snorted. "I think your bride to be is using a thigh holster instead of a garter."

Roy thought about that and swallowed hard. "I don't doubt it."

Maes chuckled and slapped his arm. "I'll go get us a drink, see if there are any catastrophes brewing."

Roy nodded and sat down on the desk in the corner of the room, the ceremony wasn't going to start for another half an hour and he was not sure what to do with the time on his hands. He picked up a newspaper and rolled his eyes at the headline. Fuhrer Raven was calling for war and Roy suspected it was to distract the populace and substitute their suspicions with patriotism in light of the recent loss of Fuhrer Bradley.

He threw the paper down, not really wanting to ruin his wedding day with thoughts of politics, but he was still a long way from reaching his goals. The homunculus had been a component he wasn't counting on to hamper his climb to the top, and the victory over them remained uncelebrated. The people of Amestris would stay forever clueless about the evil plans of Father, and their beloved Fuhrer Bradley's involvement in instrumenting the sacrifice of the entire nation to turn his sire into a God. Had it not been for the Elrics saving Issac McDougal's life, they may have not known about the diabolical plans until it was too late. With as many lives that they lost taking down these homunculus, it would have been even worse if they didn't know what they were getting involved in until it was too late.

He was glad that he had his memories back, all of them. As much as the memories of Ishval tortured him, they were essential. He needed a reminder of his failings, his capabilities and his driving force to climb to the top. He needed to feel the gravity of his actions every time he raised his hand to snap his fingers and that couldn't be done without those painful memories from his past. However he was also glad he clung to the memories from beyond the Gate, those visions of a life lived without regret and the burden of that past. It was a fantasy, but it reminded him that there was a life he needed to build from the ashes for the girl he vowed to take care of. Riza deserved a life where she could have something more than a man baby to keep tabs on and he was excited for what this future held for the two of them. He wanted to share this life with her, not just have her support as she helped push him to the top.

He felt an amused smirk pull at his lips as he thought of the final battle, the one where he had to win over Riza Hawkeye. Leave it to her to tell him 'no' when he asked her to marry him, in front of the Elrics no less. Riza swore to watch his back, assist him in his rise to the top and keep him from destroying himself along the way. She wasn't just blindly following him out of love, she believed in his cause and wanted to see it come to fruition. She wasn't going to stay home and watch him walk out that door, knowing the kind of trouble he got into on a daily basis.

He finally prevailed though, thanks to the grim reminder that their lives were unfathomably short. The dreams they both had, those vivid dreams of another world's war, grounded them both. He wasn't asking her to quit her job, he was asking her to marry him and take another assignment in a different field. He was done holding her back, clearly she was destined to make waves of her own in the military, and they had just eliminated a majority of the threats he faced. The homunculus who wanted him as a sacrifice were gone. Bradley who saw him as a threat to his position was dead. Scar was no longer looking for retribution. Really his biggest threat was his political adversaries and that was going to be a lifelong hurdle to overcome and right now he needed her beside him as his wife. Not because she made him look good, but because it was time to make time for  _them_. It was time to accept the truth that lie buried deep within them both, and that they wanted to be together in more than just an office.

If he needed backup, he promised he would request her assistance from the weapons division. Nobody would accuse them of not working well together. However, the future held a lot of paperwork and politics, it was going to take manipulation of the bureaucratic kind to remove Raven from power. He wasn't a created figure, he was just a man interested in keeping things stagnant. The problems that now plagued the country were of the normal, not supernatural, variety. Besides, it wouldn't hurt to let them think he was growing complacent by starting a family. He actually grinned at the thought of that. He was still just a Colonel and he had a long way to go to the top.

So here he was, the hard fought victory over Lieutenant Hawkeye a slim victory. He was looking forward to watching her climb the ranks while the top brass stymied his career to the best of their ability. Raven had smugly asked him if he thought he could ever climb out from under the scandal of marrying his subordinate. Roy gave him the most polite smile and informed him of the public relations opportunity at his feet. He was the famous Hero of Ishval and a wedding would give the people something to talk about, something that wasn't the mysterious death of their Fuhrer or the execution of Lt. General Gardner for his part in the 'assassination'. Raven gave him a friendly smile and Roy returned with his own, the new Fuhrer not sure how much Mustang knew. However he was right, he needed some good PR to settle public unrest and he really needed the Flame Alchemist if he was successful in declaring war with Aurego. So there was an uneasy truce as Fuhrer Raven gave his blessing and let the Flame Alchemist take the spotlight away from Central Command for a while.

Roy didn't know how involved Raven was, but he knew he was involved enough. He knew Raven suspected the same of him, but they both had their own agendas to attend to. Raven's regime was unstable and he needed to focus on that for now. Mustang was more interested in dismantling the building blocks of the government he was trying to maintain. It wasn't going to be something that happened quickly, you couldn't change a country from a dictatorship to democracy overnight. There was too much involved, the militaristic hold on the country was like an old tree's root system that had worked its way into the drainage, concrete and plumbing around an old house. It was part of everything, every working part of Amestris was controlled by the government and privatizing it immediately would destroy the country long before it's enemies could capitalize on it's instability.

"It's your wedding day, boy." Madam Christmas walked into the room and knew from the look on her foster son's face that he was contemplating his next endeavor. "The only scheming you should be doing is trying to figure out how to leave the reception early to be with your new bride."

Roy stood and walked over to his mother, dressed in a blue silk gown and adorned with enough jewels to buy a small country out of debt. He bent to give her a kiss on the cheek and did not regret the childhood he had in the least. "You look lovely as ever, Madam."

"So your future grandfather in law keeps telling me." Chris slapped her purse on the table and rubbed her butt. "You'd think with the arthritis in his hand he wouldn't be able to pinch so hard."

Roy wondered exactly who was scheming to leave the reception early, then stopped that train of thought before it ended in a horribly grotesque train wreck. Chris fussed with his dress uniform even though it was meticulous. "My boy's finally getting married."

He gave her a sweet grin and winced when she slapped her hand against his chest.

"I'm too young to be a grandmother." She grabbed her purse and let loose an exaggerated sigh to cover the fact that she just got emotional before the damned ceremony even started. "However I hope you won't make me wait another twelve years for that event. "

Roy blinked. Was it really twelve years since he first met Riza? No, it was longer than that. That was just how long they were legally able to marry. "We're going to wait until talk of war settles down a bit."

"She doesn't trust you to leave the house on your own, does she?" Chris chuckled.

"Well no, but I also don't want to miss out on anything. The one thing alchemy can't make, is a human being." He got a heavy slap to the chest again.

"Oh lord help me." Christ snorted. "Some days I wish you were just a normal kid."

"I'm 29!" He scoffed.

"Well big boy, you ready for your wedding?" Maes asked from the door.

"Oh for shit's sake Maes, never say something like that to me again." Roy shook his head and Chris grabbed his arm.

"You just wait til my speech." Maes chirped a giggle.

Roy took a deep breath and stood up tall then walked into the hall to make his way down to the beautiful garden where the wedding was being held. His ceremonial saber clanked against his leg as he walked and he felt light on his feet, more than he ever did before. Maes and Chris were behind him, mocking him for something or another, but he just let their voices fade out as he set his eyes on his beautiful bride and a smile like he had never felt before radiated from his very core. It felt very much like the energy that jolted through him when he opened the gate of truth, except that he didn't have to struggle to comprehend it's meaning. This was unbridled joy, because the woman who stood in front of him was going to be his wife. Her white dress, elegant and perfect, couldn't pull his eyes away from her face.

Riza felt her heart flutter as he took her hand off the flower bouquet and kissed it. When they were discussing the ceremony Roy dismissed the option of 'giving away the bride' and insisted on them walking down the aisle together. They walked side by side, as equals into this marriage, and he despised the idea that Riza Hawkeye was anyone's to give away. Only she could give herself to him and he wasn't going to have it any other way. He never appreciated her father's methods or actions and he wasn't going to abide by some damned traditionalist notions now. So they would go to the altar together, by each other's side, as they had done in every adventure so far. He took her hand in his, entwining their fingers together and giving her the most precious smile laced with excitement and pride.

"Ready?" Roy asked and watched her smile brighten even further.

"Do you even have to ask?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: The end! See, I can complete something! :) (OMG and it wasn't a Mature rating either!) Please drop me a review if you can and let me know what you think. Or stop by Tumblr and let me know BleedingCoffee42.
> 
> A million thanks to Wordslinger again for betaing!


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